Belgian brilliance! Jarno Widar proves potential again with impressive Tour de l'Avenir stage win ahead of Seixas and Nordhagen

The highly rated Belgian prospect Jarno Widar has shown another strong example of his immense potential to take an impressive victory on stage 5 of the 2025 Tour de l'Avenir ahead of Paul Seixas and Jorgen Nordhagen.

With the stage highlighted by three huge summits, it was on the second climb of the day - the 20.3km at 6% Cormet de Roselend - that things really exploded into life. With the peloton already having been thinned out into an elite group at the front of the race, a two man duo of France's Paul Seixas and Spain's Pablo Torres cleared the climb together. Almost as soon as the descent began however, Seixas was suddenly all alone out front heading into the final 50km of the stage and with the Tignes 2100 looming.

By the time the final climb began, it was Swiss youngster Robin Donzé who held a solo lead of around 30 seconds. Seixas meanwhile had been swallowed up by the chase and then had a momentary scare of his own as a mechanical left him out the back of the group for a short while before he eventually chased back successfully. With 19km to go, Donze was caught.

Inside the final 8km, the big attacks then came again as Seixas and Jarno Widar made their moves, distancing all other rivals by the time they entered the last 5km. As they then started to stall however, other riders started to come back into contention and with 3.5km to go, the lead group had swelled with Lorenzo Finn, Jorgen Nordhagen, Jakob Ormzel and Mateo Ramirez making contact.

Although there were attacks from Ramirez and Ormzel, the select group of six passed through the flamme rouge locked together. In the end, it was then Jarno Widar that powered to the victory at the line, taking the win narrowly ahead of Seixas.